Mike Perry was among the hundreds of UFC fighters who descended upon Las Vegas last month for the much-discussed UFC Athlete Retreat. And while there were a few grumbles to be heard regarding the festivities, Perry said he enjoyed the weekend thoroughly. In fact, his time in the desert included an elusive encounter with Ari Emanuel, the rarely-seen executive of WME-IMG and new co-owner of the UFC.

“For 45 minutes, I sat by myself in this buffet area at breakfast and nobody wanted to mess with ‘Platinum’ Perry,” Perry recalled Monday on The MMA Hour. “… And then after about 45 minutes, one fighter comes up, his name is Dustin. His girlfriend and my girlfriend got along together, so he came and he sat with me. And then this woman, 30-something-year-old woman, sat across me, asked if she could.

“And (then) Ari Emanuel comes up. He comes straight to me, he taps me on the shoulder, shakes my hand, he says, ‘hi, I’m Ari Emanuel.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that name. I know I’m supposed to be excited to meet you, but I don’t know who you are.’ He’s like, ‘I’m one of the guys who bought the joint.’ I said, ‘oh sh*t, it’s nice to meet you then!’ Then we just had a little conversation, just the four of us.”

A post shared by Platinum Mike Perry (@platinummikeperry) on May 22, 2017 at 5:51pm PDT

Given that Emanuel has effectively taken the reigns from the Fertitta brothers, Lorenzo and Frank, as the chief authority figure in the new UFC, such an inauspicious first impression may not have been Perry’s best move. But the hard-hitting welterweight simply laughed it off.

“It was the truth, you know what I mean?” Perry said, chuckling. “You can’t be afraid of the truth. It is what it is. I don’t read a lot or pay any attention to certain things like that, I guess. But then it came to me anyways, so if I’m supposed to know something, I think I will.”

WME-IMG made history last July when it purchased the UFC from the Fertitta brothers for a then-record $ 4 billion. Public statements from Emanuel and the new owners have been scant ever since, but Perry said Emanuel promised to him that good things were in store from the bosses at WME-IMG.

“He’s like, ‘I hope you’re having a good time. I hope you’re learning some things,’” Perry said. “He said he has big plans for all of the UFC and all of the fighters in it, all of the athletes. But winners, baby. You’ve got to be a winner.”

According to the other Fertitta, McGregor — who has yet to taste defeat inside the UFC Octagon — is great for the mixed martial arts (MMA) business because “Notorious” can move the pay-per-view (PPV) needle and shut down an entire country.

Now, XFS owner Gregg Sharp is speaking out, saying that he sees nothing wrong with the fight — which occurred six months ago — and the controversy is nothing more than a YouTube “hater” trying to kick up some dust. After all, this isn’t the first — or the last — time that a fighter has been knocked out in the blink of an eye in any MMA promotion.

Check out his rebuttal and explanation of how the fight between two winless fighters came to be (via Collateral Damage MMA):

“I am good! I actually thought this would have been a bigger deal six months ago the way we seem to have so many “FANS” out there, but I am not naive in the fact that sooner or later a hater or two would jump on to our YouTube account and make something of nothing. Yes, I believe that nothing is the correct term to deal with this one. Let’s strip the names and gender away and take an objective look around the world of MMA… A 0-0 fighter debuted against a 0-2 fighter and the knockout was vicious. Does this not happen on every level of MMA short of the UFC? Of course it does. Now let’s add back the players real slow and see why there is nothing wrong with the equation and we can look across the board at promotions and sanctioned events all the way up to the big leagues and see that having a fill-in opponent happens quite a bit. Ilima Macfarlance who makes her Pro debut is a terrific amateur fighter, Katie Castro who at the time is 0-2 is a not so terrific fighter, but a willing and game competitor…Ilima’s opponent pulls out, she has family that has flown in from Hawaii and across the country and we all have a decision to make. It’s a cold evening so the fighters are wearing a top and bottom Katie unfortunately did not have a politically correct top/bottom for the viewers out there, hence the term Soccer Mom but, she is agreeable to step in last minute. Do we look to make a fight happen with the resource that is available or do we cancel the fight. First person we ask is her trainer is he accepts the fight, then we ask Katie if she accepts the fight. We then get her pre fight with the doctor, wrapped up and they fight. Ilima wins by knocking Katie out and that is it. If we were not in San Diego, no one would care. If we did not have tons of talent that has come through our show no one would care. But, in the end, six months later and now everyone cares.”

Even if he could change things, Sharp says what’s done is done and he isn’t apologizing for those who are trying to discredit his promotion.

“I am sorry, but this happened SIX months ago, we are not going to or can go back and change what transpired. It was a good decision at the time, but it seems that with so many promotions finding it hard to attract fans and fighters one might assume this is now and issue done more out of trying to defame or discredit XFS so that they can try and re-fill their cards rather than a genuine concern for the sport. Either way, I am not going to run from people criticizing or critiquing XFS.”

The fight was not sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) — it took place on the San Pasqual Indian Reservation in Valley Center. Still, Sharp isn’t going to shy away from the criticism that had it been under the CSAC’s jurisdiction, the fight would have never taken place.

Something Sharp isn’t so quick to buy, using the recent Bellator 133 event — which went down in Fresno, Calif., earlier this year — that saw Cody Sons (0-1 as a professional and 0-3 in his three previous amateur bouts) take on (and eventually lose to) John Paul Elias, who was undefeated (2-0) at the time, via a 55-second knockout.

“Ok please explain then how Cody Sons who was 0-1 as a pro 0-3 in his last 3 as an ammy, So 0-4 in his last 4 was sanctioned to fight John Paul Elias 3-0 in Bellator 133 in Fresno under CSAC? Are you saying that XFS is now being held to a higher standard than the matchmakers at Bellator and CSAC? Is this not an egregious match up that was actually matched and accepted three weeks prior to the show? Did someone out there other than Cody actually think he was going to win? How is it that Ken Tenario who is actually 0-23 (Two different Sherdog profiles) is commissioned to fight in any State Athletic Commissioned promotion?Guys that haven’t trained for years that are horrible fighters are called off the couches all the time and they are licensed and thrown to better talent. Do you want me to play historian and look at who is not fighting the best competition out there and who’s allowing it? This would be a 1,000 page article! If you look closely enough, which isn’t very close at all, you will see “what after the fact assessments” are called mismatches on 80 percent of all fighters’ records in the big leagues. It happens, all the time, the only reason this one is so prevalent is that someone drank some “Haterade” and looked to cause me some grief. But instead Ilima is now in the front of the line in a ton for a ton of top level promotions and most importantly Katie is fine and doing well.

It appears that Sharp and XFS have a valid (albeit not great) argument. And perhaps this all could have been avoided had the promotion insisted that one of its female fighters not enter the cage in a blouse and yoga pants.

We’d like to think we played at least a minor role in the video of the soccer mom getting viciously KO’d going viral over the weekend (as well as the ensuing backlash aimed at Xplode Fight Series for allowing it to happen), even though it turned out that a) The woman in question was not a soccer mom, but actual, “professional” fighter Katie Castro and b) the clip was over 6 months old. What can we say? We *need* validation even in it’s smallest, most insignificant form.

In any case, the utter mismatch that was Castro vs. Macfarlane has raised some major questions regarding Xplode Fight Series’ well-documented history of questionable fight booking, with many people (mainly us) calling for the promotion to be held responsible for their disgraceful actions, if not shut down entirely.

Enter XFS owner Gregg Sharp, who attempted to quell the fires surrounding his promotion/the matchup in an interview with the aptly-named CollateralDamageMMA late last week. Without spoiling too much, I will say that his response to the backlash was exactly the kind of sickening, take-no-responsibility bullshit that you’d expect from a guy who allowed the above fight to happen.

His initial defense, I kid you not, is as follows:

I actually thought this would have been a bigger deal 6 months ago the way we seem to have so many “FANS” out there, but I am not naive in the fact that sooner or later a hater or two would jump on to our YouTube account and make something of nothing.

I was never part of my high school’s debate team, but if I was, I’m pretty that the first thing I would have learned would be to not immediately contradict myself, then write off the offense in question as “something out of nothing.”

Yes I believe that nothing is the correct term to deal with this one. Let’s strip the names and gender away and take an objective look around the world of MMA… A 0-0 fighter debuted against a 0-2 fighter and the knockout was vicious. Does this not happen on every level of MMA short of the UFC? Of course it does.

Ah, the old “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” defense, which, aside from being a completely asinine way of shedding yourself of any responsibility regarding the safety of someone’s life, doesn’t really work when said 0-2 fighter has competed both times under your organization and been KO’d on both occasions in under 1 minute.

“Look, Timmy, it’s not that I want to stick your pledge paddle up your ass sideways, it’s that I have to because tradition. I mean, do you want to be an Alpha Sig or what?!!”

Ilima Macfarlance who makes her Pro debut is a terrific amateur fighter, Katie Castro who at the time is 0-2 is a not so terrific fighter, but a willing and game competitor…Ilima’s opponent pulls out, she has family that has flown in from Hawaii and across the country and we all have a decision to make.

“I mean, what are we going to do? Just pay this clearly superior fighter her win/show money and disappoint the tens of fans who paid to see this? THEY WANT BLOOD DAMMIT!!”

Do you think it was a good match-up?

I am sorry but this happened SIX months ago, we are not going to or can go back and change what transpired. It was a good decision at the time, but it seems that with so many Promotions finding it hard to attract fans and fighters one might assume this is now and issue done more out of trying to defame or discredit XFS so that they can try and re-fill their cards rather than a genuine concern for the sport. Either way I am not going to run from people criticizing or critiquing XFS.

So now it’s…the fans fault that this happened? Rival promotions, maybe? Sharp is acting like this fight was a rare instance of a respected promotion allowing a matchup to slip through the cracks, when in reality it’s just the opposite. If anything, XFS is only notorious for booking ridiculously lopsided matches.

Take Walel Watson, for instance, who followed up his 4-fight stint in the UFC by facing Anthony Moore (0-14) and Joey Apodaca (0-9) in back-to-back XFS appearances. Or Strikeforce/Bellator vet Keith Berry, who fought 0-0 Josh Gibson in what was billed as a middleweight title fight back in 2012. FYI, Gibson’s record currently sits at 0-6, with 5 of those appearances coming by first round stoppage under the XFS banner.

Sharp is essentially trying to claim that by reporting these simple facts, us jelly h8ers are somehow slandering an otherwise noble and revered organization. “But hey, it happened six months ago and has had zero effect on how we do business, so sorry not sorry!”

But people say that if this was a commission show this would not have happened! What do you say to that?

Ok please explain then how Cody Sons who was 0-1 as a pro 0-3 in his last 3 as an ammy, So 0-4 in his last 4 was sanctioned to fight John Paul Elias 3-0 in Bellator 133 in Fresno under CSAC? Are you saying that XFS is now being held to a higher standard than the matchmakers at Bellator and CSAC? Is this not an egregious match up that was actually matched and accepted three weeks prior to the show? Did someone out there other than Cody actually think he was going to win?

“How many times do I have to say this until it makes sense to you people? If enough people agree that infanticide is an acceptable form of entertainment, then what am I suppose to do, *not* make money off of baby murder? My hands are tied!”

So, are you justifying your actions with other promotions? That is a tough justification on any level.

Not at all, I am merely stating the facts. If you are saying that XFS is the only promotion in the world that has kept a fight on the card by working with a last minute fighter then you are crazy. If you are saying that Athletic commissions make sure that this does not happen then you are certifiable. Honestly there are fighters in other promotions that have been built up so that their “promotional hometown hero’s” or the family of the matchmaker/promoter will beat an opponent with a winning record. Now that resonates on all levels of MMA! Making me the center of the witch hunt is extremely humorous!

Right, except you are quite literally justifying your actions based on other promotions, you arrogant, short-sighted dipsh*t. This is more or less the exact same conversation that Tyrion Lannister and Hizdahr zo Loraq were having in last week’s Thrones episode.

““It’s an unpleasant question, but what great thing has ever been accomplished without killing or cruelty?” — Loraq

“It’s easy to confuse what is with what ought to be, especially when what is has worked out in your favor.” — Tyrion

You are Loraq in this instance, Gregg, and I can only pray that you meet a similar fate.

What is the solution then?

Why do I need to create a solution? How about this… introduce me to an Oil tycoon’s son and allow me access to 20 million dollars and I will take XFS to the next level, return your investment with interest and create a new dynamic for all the fighters in Southern California. Sound good? Well let’s be honest that equation did not work out to well for one Texas based promotion did it? Unfortunately I guess I am not that lucky.

“I have proved myself to be nothing but a deplorable, ignorant individual who values putting money in my own pocket over the safety of the people my organization is charged with protecting, but if you give me more money, everything will be better!”

Public opinion at best is slated to a plethora of keyboard warriors and “craven’s who sit at the battles edge” and cast mean-spirited comments with the hopes of hurting someone’s feelings and in the end nothing gets fixed, so we can’t go to a public consensus on it. I guess I could start a GoFundMe account like everyone else that believes that social media begging is a lot better than getting a job and working for your dreams and ask to raise 20 million, nah I would rather work than to beg….

I will continue to run XFS until I feel we have finished our mission and we are ready to move on. If people want to write about me go ahead, I just delete their comments anyway, actually I have staff that does that so please don’t get too excited that you are talking to me.

Wow. Just…wow.

“This isn’t a democracy, and even if it was, your opinions and concerns about FIGHTER SAFETY AND REGULATION are clearly just jealousy manifesting itself in a couple nerdy Youtube comments, so if you’ll excuse me…”